Baking with the boys; Rainbow Cake

Baking with the boys; Rainbow Cake

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Today I had loads of fun in the kitchen with two little kitchen helpers. Yesterday, on our return trip from Ilorin,  Kwara State, the boys – my 3 yrs/ 8 month old son and his 7 yrs old favourite cousin- told me what they want to cook with me in the kitchen this week.

Top on the list was Rainbow Cookies and then Rainbow Cake.
Gosh and they bugged me till I finished what i was doing and followed them to the kitchen and bake we did. Rainbow cookies would be made tomorrow. Come and bake with us.

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The little man obviously thought it was cool to strike a pose in his apron, but the older man could care less.

Recipe
We used a pound cake recipe we  adapted from Allrecipes.com

•  3 cups all-purpose flour

•  3/4 teaspoon baking powder

•   1/4 teaspoon salt

•   1 cup unsalted butter, softened

•   1/2 cup white margarine

•   2 2/3 cups granulated sugar

•   5 eggs

•   1 cup milk

•   1 teaspoon vanilla essence

•   1 tablespoon lemon juice

•   1/2 tablespoon cinnamon

•   1/4 teaspoon lemon zest

•   Food Color ( I used 7 colours, Red, Yellow, Orange, Pink, Purple,  Blue, Green)

Pictorial of the fun things the boys got up to.

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They sifted flour.
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They greased and lined pans with parchment paper
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I could hear a lot of ewwws and yucks as they broke the eggs. Guess who had shells in his eggs. Lol
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They had lots of fun mixing on the colours, the mess made was part of the fun.

Procedure

–  Do not preheat the oven. Grease 10 inch tube pan and line bottom with wax paper or parchment paper.

–  Sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.

–  In a large bowl, beat the butter, margarine, and sugar on low speed for 10 minutes.

–  Add the eggs one at a time, blending well after each addition.

–  Add the lemon zest, vanilla essence and lemon juice

–  Alternately add the flour mixture and milk, ending with flour.  Stop mixing when you add the last part of flour, so as not to over mix. Scrape whatever is hanging at the corners of your mixing bowl with with a spatula

– Separate the batter into equal parts in seven separate bowls.

–  Add a dash of colour, and mix it in till well incorporated.  I prefer to use paste colours as against the liquid colours, we used both types .

–  Pour coloured batter into the prepared pan, my boys wanted us to pour the Blue batter first and we followed with the other colours.

–  Set the oven temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C. Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of cake comes out clean. Allow cake to cool in the pan for 1 hour.

–   Remove to a cake rack and cool for at least 3 hours.

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Behold our Rainbow Cake,  all I could hear were , oohs and aahs, oh gosh the cake is so lovely. I’m sure you agree.

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Need I tell you that all their plans flew out of the window once they saw their cake.

The rainbow would appear once again in my kitchen  tomorrow.
#ilovebeingamum #ilovebeinganaunt
#ilovebeingme
#beingmeisfun

This is also a fun and inexpensive way to say happy birthday to your child and entertain friends too.

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You don’t need spend money on a cake or know how to frost a cake, the colours of the rainbow would shine right through.

26 thoughts on “Baking with the boys; Rainbow Cake”

  2. awesome ma. i also had the rainbow theme in my kitchen yesterday. may our lives continually radiate the colors of the rainbow. ps ma can i use the normal simas butter to make this? i noticed d recipe called for 1 cup butter and 1/2 cup margarine. if i can use simas then what measurement will i use?

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    1. Amen to that prayer. Simas is margarine not butter, so you can make the full measurement 1 1/2 margarine. Also skip the salt as the margarine is already salted.

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    1. 1 cup butter is approximately 226.8 grams.
      Topper, Simas, blue band etc are margarine and not butter as it is erroneously called. You’d find butter in the frozen food section of any good store or supermarket like Shoprite, spar… They are sold in bars and wrapped in foil type papers.

      However if you can’t access butter, use margarine only

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  9. Pingback: Baking with the boys (Part 2); Rainbow Cookies – Ounje

    1. Not milk cups. I use standard measuring cups. Standard measuring cups are sold in baking goods stores in sets of 6. You can buy for as little as 300 naira.

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    1. Lemon Zest is gotten by peeling the back of a lemon with the fine part of a grater. Cinnamon you’d get in a supermarket or baking goods store

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